Sunday, April 21, 2013

Stephen Troio, 19, a former classmate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, says the suspected bomber is shown, kneeling at left, in this January 2012 photo of their intramural soccer team. Troio is squatting in the center, wearing yellow gloves.

By Miranda Leitsinger, Staff Writer, NBC News

NORTH DARTMOUTH, Mass. -- As students trickled back to the university on Sunday where surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, has been enrolled as a sophomore, the teenager's classmates expressed disbelief over his involvement in the attack and suggested that he may have been the victim of "brainwashing" by his older brother.

Two classmates of Tsarnaev’s at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth said they saw the bombing suspect at the gym working out on Tuesday -- the day after the bombing.

Sophomore Nathan Young, who described himself as a good friend of Tsarnaev's, said that Tsarnaev seemed glum when he saw him at the gym.

"He seemed really ... down and out of it, just like he wasn't really working out. He was just sitting there," said Young, 20, who is studying pre-law and finance.

Young said Tsarnaev once talked about his older brother, and noted that it seemed like the teenager looked up to him. He suggested that Dzhokhar might have been subject to "brainwashing."

“I definitely think that's what happened, at least with his brother," Young said. "It is speculation. That's how I feel like it happened.”

“I feel like ... that's the only thing that makes sense," said Stephen Troio, 19, who played on an intramural soccer team with Tsarnaev. "Just because I feel like he couldn't have just randomly snapped.” The two met in fall of 2011, and Troio said he stayed friends with Tsarnaev after the league ended in 2012, before summer break.

Young said he met Tsarnaev the first day of freshman year because his roommates had gone to high school with the suspect in Cambridge. He said he spoke to Tsarnaev nearly every day -- this year, they lived together in the sophomore dorm -- noting that he'd sometimes wake up late at night to see Tsarnaev and his roommate playing FIFA soccer on Xbox.

"He's a really nice kid. Like, honestly, one of the nicest kids I knew. He was friendly to everyone," said Young. "I partied with him. I hung out with him."

Young said the Friday before the bombings, he received a text from Tsarnaev asking if he could bring something to Boston for him. Young told him that he wouldn't be making it to Boston, so he never learned what his friend wanted him to bring.

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